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Germany suffer six defeats in a year for first time

Germany's 2-1 Nations League away to world champions France on Tuesday saw them suffer a sixth loss in a single calendar year for the first time ever.

It has been a woeful year for Germany's national team, with off-field controversy and a shambolic World Cup campaign attracting headlines for the wrong reason.

In terms of results, Saturday's 3-0 defeat at Netherlands was the worst, as they were comfortably swept aside by Ronald Koeman's young team.

But two of their most crucial defeats came in Russia, as they lost 1-0 to Mexico in their opening group game and were then dumped out before the knockout phase as a result of a 2-0 reverse at the hands of South Korea.

Their other two losses were to Brazil and Austria in pre-World Cup friendlies.

Although they ended up losing to France on Tuesday, Germany's performance for the first hour was positive – they just failed to maintain their level and were ultimately punished by a contentious penalty.

Nevertheless, it consigned them to successive competitive defeats for the first time since 2000.